Don’t say you were never told. John Carroll’s The Wreck of Western Culture is one of the most underappreciated volumes published in recent memory.[1] Readers beware, however. Carroll’s book is for readers who like their coffee strong (the book is more like a Green Eye than a Café au Lait), and perhaps that’s one reason for its relative neglect. So although I’ve not been able to write up a review, here’s a brief notice about the book.

Carroll, an Aussie sociologist, argues that secular humanism has wrecked Western culture by depriving it of the deep insights provided by faith. He begins the book by prophesying the universal ruin of Western culture: “We live amidst the ruins of the great, five-hundred-year epoch of humanism. Around us is that ‘colossal wreck.’ Our culture is a flat expanse of rubble” (p. 1) But diagnosis is not Carroll’s primary concern; intellectual genealogy is, and he immediately launches his investigation into how we have arrived at this state of affairs: we turned away from theism and toward humanism, trying “to create out of nothing something as strong as the faith of the New Testament that could move mountains” (p. 3). To do so meant that one must build an anthropocentric, rather than a theocentric, worldview: “To place the human individual at the center meant that he or she had to become the Archimedean point around which everything revolved.”

He accomplishes his argument by tracing Western intellectual and spiritual history in general, and Western works of art in particular. He focuses on Holbein’s The Ambassadors and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Both of these works illustrate the modern retreat from the theological narratives that have sustained Western society and culture for more than 2,000 years. Both works of art center on a skull. Holbein’s painting includes a distorted and oblong skull in the foreground of the picture, while Shakespeare’s Hamlet contains Yorrick’s skull. In Carroll’s narrative, these skulls symbolize Western culture’s fear of death; if life and death have been divested of divine meaning, then death becomes the ominous and dominant force in our lives and culture. If death has no more meaning than the Darwinist sense, then life has no meaning either, and life becomes absurdly horrible, as Nietzsche argued.

The Wreck of Western Culture is a richly imaginative and passionate interpretation of the intellectual and spiritual history of the West. Its strengths lie in Carroll’s ability to create a vigorous and comprehensive narrative explaining the fall of Western Civilization; its weaknesses lie in Carroll’s sometimes-deficient interpretations of art and theology. Strongly recommended.

Several weeks ago, I had the privilege of participating in a consultation on “Transdisciplinary Scholarship” sponsored by the Paideia Centre for Public Theology in Ontario, Canada. The meeting lasted for two days and was populated by thirteen scholars or public figures including Craig Bartholomew, R. R. Reno, Hunter Baker, Claudia Beversluis, C. Stephen Evans, Derek Halvorson, Michael Healy, Eric Johnson, Todd Ream, Robert Sloan, W. Jay Wood, Edward Zinke, and your scribe.

The notion of transdisciplinarity is fetching and, in my opinion, significant for the renewal of Christian higher education. Our discussion of transdisciplinarity began with a co-presentation by Bartholomew and Johnson, in which they assessed the state of affairs in Christian higher education. Their presentation was divided into three parts, which I shall try to distill in the next several paragraphs of this post.

First, Bartholomew and Johnson asked “Where are we?” In response, they noted that Christian scholars are still living in the shadow of the so-called death of Modernity, a complex ideological movement that handicaps Christian scholarship in myriad ways. This ideology “can be characterized by a reliance on autonomous reason and the scientific method for knowledge (often synonymous with positivism), skepticism regarding tradition and biblical revelation, the proliferation and growing specialization of knowledge, a commitment to individualism and human rights, and a strong belief in cultural progress.” Although many of the positive aspects of the modern agenda spring from the West’s Christian roots, the negative aspects arose because the Christian worldview was abandoned. Western scholars ultimately displaced a Christian framework for knowledge by embracing a naturalist metaphysic and epistemology, and a secular system of public and scientific discourse. As a result higher education came to have no center, and experienced disciplinary fragmentation.

Second, they asked “What is the next phase in Western thought and practice?” Although evangelicals have tried to overcome de-centered education and disciplinary fragmentation by embarking on a project of “integration,” this project often is tainted by late modern presuppositions and therefore often is unable to offer a truly Christian account of the academic disciplines. For this reason, we must go beyond “integration.” We must recognize the ways in which late modernity has reified and isolated the disciplines from one another, and replace the later modern paradigm with a truly Christian one. In order to do so we leverage the Christian Scriptures and worldview toward the end of promoting a Christian “transdisciplinarity.”

Third, they asked “What is transdisciplinary scholarship? Transdisciplinary scholarship is scholarship which promotes the synthesis of human understanding for a distinctively Christian viewpoint. Against the late modern academic model, which results in ever-increasing specialization and the fragmentation of the disciplines, Bartholomew and Johnson argue that transdisciplinarity’s goal is “the transposition of each discipline into a higher, ever-increasingly unified order of knowledge and love, based on a Christian metaphysic.” Transdisciplinary scholarship relies upon certain metadisciplines (biblical studies, theology, Christian philosophy) to guide it in building an integrated body of knowledge, understanding, and practice. Instead of merely learning within isolated disciplines, therefore, we are able to bring the disciplines into conversation with one another, with each discipline being enriched, and with new transdisciplines being created.

Bartholomew and Johnson’s presentation was followed by several others. Robert Sloan spoke on “The State of the Nation” in regard to higher education. Eric Johnson presented “Transdisciplinary Scholarship as an Alternative Model.” Craig Bartholomew presented “Spiritual Formation, Intellectual Community, and Transdisciplinarity.” C. Stephen Evans presented “Philosophy and Transdisciplinarity.” Finally, yours truly wrapped up the consultation with a presentation which sought to point the way forward in light of the previous presentations.

The consultation was refreshing, in part because it was a small collaborative discussion rather than a sprawling and disconnected “conference,” but also because the concept of transdisciplinarity is a useful one for bringing unity to the field of Christian higher education in upcoming years. I agree with several of the presenters that the academy is experiencing an ever-increasing fragmentation, that this fragmentation keeps us from building an increasingly unified and God-centered body of knowledge, that it further handicaps the specialized disciplines themselves, and that it impoverishes human existence by separating out what ought to be held together.

I am not arguing that the universities and seminaries should discourage specialized knowledge, but that specialized fields of knowledge should remain in conversation with one another, and they should together be informed by certain metadisciplines (such as biblical studies, theology, and Christian philosophy) which are vital to their ultimate fruition. In other words, the Christian university should seek truly to be a uni-versity, a unified endeavor. The Christian university should center itself on biblical studies, Christian theology, and Christian philosophy, allowing the various scholarly disciplines to flourish within this truly Christian framework.

The obstacles to building a transdisciplinary Christian university are many, but not insurmountable. Presidents and Provosts must re-prioritize by hiring faculty members who will invest in the project, providing forums in which professors from various disciplines (e.g. arts, sciences) remain in close conversation with one another, and in which they together converse with biblical scholars, theologians, and Christian philosophers. Professors must re-prioritize, by investing time and energy in reading more broadly (in the meta-disciplines and in other disciplines) and engaging in their research projects communally. To re-prioritize in this manner poses a challenge, in light of the fact that many scholars are already stretched thin because of their teaching, advising, writing, and committee-attendance. However, the challenge is not insurmountable, and those persons and universities will be rewarded who meet the challenge in order to forge a genuinely transdisciplinary environment.

One final note: I hope the reader does not come away from this post with the impression that I think “all is bad” in Christian higher education. On the contrary, there is much about which to be optimistic. There are many Christian universities who have a vision to build a truly Christian university and who are realizing the fruits of their efforts. Union University, California Baptist University, and Houston Baptist University immediately come to mind, as do others. However, although everything is not bad, neither is everything good. Christian institutions of higher education have been adversely affected by our late modern and postmodern context, and find themselves struggling to build a truly unified and God-centered framework for knowledge. Toward that end, the concept of transdisciplinary scholarship seems a helpful one, and worthy of extended discussion and reflection.

In a recent article in The Chronicle Review, David Orentlicher argues that two are better than one, at least when it comes to the United States Presidency.[1] Citing falling approval ratings, intractable political scuffles between the President (past and present) and Congress, and abuses of executive power (e.g., Watergate and Guantánamo) Orentlicher argues that the U.S. ought to adopt a system whereby each major party has a President, serving at the same time.

Orentlicher believes the problems with Congress are structural failings – “the decision by the founding fathers to place a single president atop the executive branch” (B4). While the original plan was for the legislative and judicial branches to check the power of the executive, according to Orentlicher, that increasingly does not happen. Thus, while we may not be able to reduce the amount of power in the Presidency, “we can, however, channel executive power in a more productive direction” with two instead of one at the top (B4).

Orentlicher cites examples from Switzerland and France, where politicians from different parties served in apparent “cohabitation” to bring about governing successes. Orentlicher believes that shared power, far from fostering an extended and destructive gridlock, would instead create an environment of cooperation because of the incentive both persons would have to build their legacy. Moreover, he cites game theory as a supporting idea–two people in a continuing relationship are more likely to cooperate (B5). According to Orentlicher two is better than one.

For my part, I’m more than a little bit skeptical. However, since I am not a political scientist, I’ll limit my comments to a related, and more theological, set of issues surrounding the intractable political scuffles and abuses of executive power to which Orentlicher refers.

The roots of any political dysfunction are complex and multi-faceted; they can be social, moral, practical, geographical, historical, etc., but almost always they involve a religious element. Politics is a function of the broader culture, and at the heart of culture is religion. In other words, an “ecology” of our American socio-political environment would show that the “roots” of the socio-political tree are “faith.” At the bottom of dysfunction in general, and political dysfunction in particular, is the direction of the human heart. A society is populated either by those who love, trust, and obey God, on the one hand, or by those who love, trust, and obey idols, on the other hand.

The United States, like other countries, is a teeming ecosystem of idolatry, providing a lush environment in which citizens may cultivate an inordinate love for sex, money, power, success, and the approval of man. These types of idols exist in a co-dependent relationship and foster the “isms” that dishonor God and disable human flourishing—isms such as consumerism, relativism, eroticism, naturalism, and scientism. Only as citizens find Christ can they be set free from enslavement to idols and for conformity to Christ.

Jesus Christ is Lord over the social and political process, just as he is Lord over everything else, and this Lordship is best understood in relation to three great truths. First, God created us as social and cultural beings. He endowed us with the spiritual, moral, rational, creative, relational, and physical capacities necessary to interact in the public square.

Second, political activity is marked by a great antithesis. After the fall, humans have lived in the midst of a great struggle between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness, between Christ and Satan, and between truth and error. These invisible realities, represented by certain principalities and powers, are manifested in visible, tangible cultural realities such as greed, vitriol, dishonesty, and relativism in politics. This great struggle between light and darkness cuts across the entire creation and every human culture. Christians should resist this comprehensive assault on our shared cultural life. We should fight it tooth and nail, not only from the pulpit, but also from the public square.

Third, political activity takes place within an ordered realms which has its own creational design. Human cultures can be divided into a variety of realms—such as art, science, business, politics, and education—which have their own creational design and God-given integrity. Because we live in a fallen world comprised of sinners, these realms will be to some extent corrupted and directed toward wrong ends. In each realm (including the political realm), we should ask three questions: What is God’s creational design for this realm? In what ways has this realm been corrupted and misdirected toward wrong ends? How can I bring healing to this realm by redirecting it toward God’s creational design in Christ? To the extent we engage the public square with those questions in mind, we glorify God and provide our neighbors a preview of God’s future rule over a renewed and restored creation.

In other words, academic activity should take place under the absolute Lordship of Christ. Christ is the creator and King over all things, and one day will restore all things. He is not merely the Lord over my quiet times; he is Lord over my work, my leisure, and my politics. He is not merely sovereign over local church gatherings; he is sovereign over the public square. No piece of our (“secular”) life is to be sealed off from Christ’s lordship. Every square inch of it belongs to Christ and ought to be made to honor him. Missional Christians not only proclaim the gospel with words, they promote it in their public and political lives.

Should the theological school be considered an “academic” enterprise? Or is it a “churchly” endeavor? Yes and yes. Or, so says Richard Mouw in his recent monograph, The Challenges of Cultural Discipleship. In the next-to-last chapter, “The Seminary, the Church, and the Academy,” Mouw argues that the theological school is an academic manifestation of Christ’s kingdom, and yet it is a manifestation closely related to the church.[1]

Mouw begins the chapter by providing a concise overview of the struggles within the Christian Reformed Church in the late 19^th century, in which the Free University of Amsterdam (associated with Abraham Kuyper) promoted an essentially non-ecclesiastical model while Kampen Theological Seminary (where Herman Bavinck spent the large portion of his career) operated under ecclesiastical control. Kuyper was anti-ecclesiastic because of his doctrine of sphere sovereignty, which argues that each sphere of human culture (e.g. the academy) has its own unique integrity and should not be controlled by another sphere (e.g. church).

Mouw notes that the “theological school” is an interesting case study for proponents of sphere sovereignty (of which Mouw is one), and argues that the theological school’s ontology is of the academy and for the church. For him, the theological school is an academic manifestation of Christ’s kingdom. It is a kingdom manifestation not because it is a church, or is essentially churchly, but because it honors God in the way it conforms to God-given principles and norms for academic-type work.

He further argues that both churches and theological schools are manifestations of the same kingdom of Christ. “To emphasize,” he writes, “that the church and the theological school are together accountable to something larger than either of them is to guard against the impression that either entity exists simply to serve the other’s interests. A theological school may be accountable to a specific ecclesial body, but it also has other accountability relationships—not the least being its relationships to the larger world of theological education.” For this reason, there exists a special pattern of accountability between theological schools and the church: “the theological school is indeed in the academy; but it exists there to make the benefits of academic life available to the church, and out of a deep love for the church’s life and mission.”

Theological schools, Mouw argues, should be accountable to church bodies because ecclesial concerns necessarily should shape and inform its curricula. Although the theological school might also focus on other constituencies such as relief organizations, occupation-specific laity groups, parachurch organizations, etc., its most significant focus should be on the struggles and challenges of congregational life. In exactly this manner, the theological school is “more than” an academic institution. The church should expect its theological schools to complement the church in spiritual formation, community involvement, psychological training, etc. In fact, in doing these “more than” activities, the seminary can impress upon the broader academic world the significance of such matters.

Toward the end of the chapter, Mouw provides a nice summary and distillation of his view when he writes, “Theological education needs to be free to pursue its unique functions in the context of the kingdom of Christ. In insisting on this I am not espousing an unbridled ‘free inquiry.’ As an evangelical Calvinist I am convinced that theological education will be at its healthiest only when it is grounded in a deep commitment to biblical orthodoxy. I firmly support the maintenance of confessional boundaries that define and safeguard that commitment to evangelical institutions. Theological educators ought not to lust after a promiscuous intellectual freedom. We are bonded to the Word of God, and to the cause of the Savior whose cosmic redemptive mission is infallibly revealed in that Word. This means that our academic callings can never be pursued in a way that distances us from the church over whom the Savior reigns as Lord.” For Mouw, the theological school is “an academic manifestation of the rule of Christ” which is accountable to the church.

My response will be limited to a brief reflection on the hybrid nature of theological schools such as the institution at which I am employed, the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Although we are indeed an academic manifestation of Christ’s kingdom, the seminary is essentially church-related.  We exist at the pleasure of the SBC and in order to train ministers for SBC churches, missionaries for the IMB, and leaders for the convention entities. We operate faithfully and gratefully within SBC confessional boundaries. We want our education grounded in the worship and witness life of the redeemed community. For this reason, we require our students to be meaningful members of their churches. Further, we build “churchly” elements into the seminary’s life and curriculum: we have chapel services, promote spiritual formation, community life, and evangelism.

And the seminary is not a church. A seminary is distinctively different from a local congregation. We do not baptize or administer the Lord’s Supper. We do not endow any members of the seminary with pastoral authority. Unfortunately, however, seminary students can (either consciously or unconsciously) allow seminary to replace church. The chapel services become congregational worship, the professors become functional pastors, and a student’s peers become the members of their “covenant” community. If and when a student allows seminary functionally to become his church, he warps and distorts God’s purposes for the seminary and does so to his own detriment.

Although the seminary is church related, it is an academic manifestation of Christ’s kingdom. SBC seminaries are called forth by Southern Baptist churches in order to serve the church in the academic aspect of its discipleship and leadership training. Our education includes academic elements: we deliver lectures, administer exams, seek accreditation, publish journals, require Chicago style for our papers, and participate in conversation with the broader academy. These are essentially academic elements of seminary life; they are not “churchly,” and yet they count as “kingdom work.” For each aspect of the seminary’s life is to be brought under the Lordship of Christ and normed according to his word.

And yet the seminary is not purely academic. It is called forth into existence by the church and in turn serves the church. It does not bow to secular norms for the academic disciplines. For each academic discipline which has a counterpart at state universities, we ask at least three questions: What is God’s creational design for this discipline? How has this discipline been corrupted and misdirected by human idolatry? In what ways can we bring healing and redirection to his discipline? By asking these three questions, we are able to transform (or in some cases, reconstruct) disciplines such as biblical studies, counseling, or ethics in light of God’s normative word.

I’ve limited myself to a few brief reflections, and wish to hear our readership’s reflections on this significant topic. Do you agree with the basic thesis of the blog? Is there anything you would add or modify? Do you see further dangers of misunderstanding the seminary’s place in between church and academy?

HONORING “LETTER FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL

By Mark Liederbach with Tom Iversen

April 16^th marked the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”

Many (including us) rank his letter as one of greatest pieces of American literature ever written.  It is at once a powerful and elegant exposition of, and argument for, natural law as well as a sturdy call to repentance and an outright challenge for those who claim to be aligned with the Gospel of Jesus Christ to stand up and be counted in the fight for truth and justice.  Fifty years later it is still poignantly relevant to a culture experiencing a full assault on notions of moral truth, ethical standards, religious conscience and rightly ordered freedom.

Sadly, too many evangelicals (both white and black) are unfamiliar with the masterpiece that is MLK Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” But consider some of the astounding statements found within:

Wherever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being ‘disturbers of the peace’ and ‘outside agitators.’ But they went on with the conviction that they were a ‘colony of heaven’ and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be ‘astronomically intimidated.’ They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest. Things are different now. The contemporary Church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the archsupporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the Church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.

The early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the Church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

In considering the philosophical and biblical sturdiness as well as the theological and moral challenge present in the Letter, we can’t help but be drawn to the words and thoughts of the Apostle Paul in Acts 17 that have a similar shaping influence on questions of justice, truth and morality.  There, in Athens, on Mars Hill, while engaging the Greek philosophers and bringing the truth of the Gospel into the marketplace of ideas, Paul made this remarkable statement:

and God made from one blood every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being… (Acts 17:26-28. Italics added for emphasis). 

One Blood

In Him we live and move and have our being.

Ideas to rock the status quo and change a world.

One blood means there is only one race: the human one.  Thus, racism is fundamentally stupid and unbiblical.

In Him we live and move and have our being means all humans will only find hope fulfilled and a satisfied soul as each person rightly aligns him or herself to the God who created all things for His own glory.  And that can only happen through faith in Jesus Christ.

One important difference between Dr. King’s Letter and the Apostle Paul’s speech on Mars Hill relates to the audience to whom each was directed.  It is interesting to note that Dr. King made his argument not so much to unbelievers or those who directly persecuted him, but to his brothers and sisters in Christ.  His target audience was those tepid, timid “white churchmen [who] stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities” and justify their inaction by saying “those are social issues with which the Gospel has no real concern.”

Perhaps the reason the words of MLK Jr. and Paul are so powerful and transcend notions of race or ethnicity is not because of the elegance of the writing or the catchiness of certain phrases, but rather (and far more importantly), because truth always transcends categories of race and ethnicity.  And speaking truth in the face of injustice or ideas that stand in opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ is one of the key ways true Christ followers must “take captive” and “destroy” ideas and speculations that stand against the things of God in their own heats and in the culture at large.

It is for this reason that at the 50 year anniversary of Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”  we are especially grateful to God for Dr. King and his calling all of us to be stand and fight not just for ending the moral stupidity of racism, but even more so, to be the kind of people who do not acquiesce to the ideas of culture but rather shape it for the Glory of God.

Fifty years ago Martin Luther King Jr. stood like a man and called all of us to be better.  Fifty years later he is still calling us up to be men with him.

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is timeless work of ethics, philosophy, theology, amazing writing … AND a good reminder of two astounding truths: 1) The Gospel is thicker than blood (and therefore skin color) and; 2) our lives and our world can only be transformed into wholeness  through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

(Image credit)

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Mark Liederbach is Professor of Theology, Ethics, and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as Vice President for Student Services and Dean of Students, and is a Research Fellow for the L.Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture. Tom Iversen serves as an elder at North Wake Church in Wake Forest, NC.

The following thoughts come from a recent conversation I had with John Piper during the Advance Conference. I believe I am reflecting Piper’s words accurately, even though they are recorded here from my memory of the conversation, not verbatim.

“I sometimes think of John the Baptist’s death, how absurd it must have seemed,” Piper began. “Can you imagine it? The guard opens the door and says, ‘John, come here and kneel.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because a middle school girl danced and asked for your head.’ What a pitiful way to go! John the Baptist was probably kneeling there, about to die, thinking, ‘Really, Lord? I go out like this? Killed because of a middle school girl and her dancing?’”

“And, of course, the real reason that John was killed—the reason he had been imprisoned in the first place—was because he had called out King Herod’s sexual immorality. You can hear today’s critics: ‘That’s just what you get, John, for poking your head into politics.’ But Jesus wasn’t ashamed of John’s sacrifice. He thought it was a noble act of courage that led to his death. In fact, when people told Jesus about the execution, Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest prophet who ever lived.”

Here is a pressing question for my generation: is the courage of John the Baptist at work in us, or will we falter when the question comes to us? It reminded me of what my wife remarked to me recently: that the day may come when I may be forced to choose between the size of our church—which I love, of course, we love reaching people—and faithfulness to the gospel. I mentioned this to Piper, and he responded:

“That’s not exactly it. Take homosexuality, for example. The only time I’ve seen Tim Keller depressed was over this issue in our culture. 20% of the people in our society will always think that homosexual behavior is wrong. But Keller thinks we’ve essentially lost the other 80%. Now, that doesn’t mean that your church is going to shrink. The 20%, after all, will always be looking for someone with the courage to speak the truth. The more homosexual behavior is praised in our society, the more that 20% will flock to your church.”

“You won’t have to choose between faithfulness and a big church per se. But you might have to choose between faithfulness and your personal freedom. What I mean is, you will have to decide whether or not you’re prepared to go to prison. I’m not exaggerating. So, in a roundabout way, I guess your wife is right… because, after all, how big of a church can you have in prison?”

Hmmff. In a recent blog post, “On Writing Well,” Stephen M. Walt (Professor of International Affairs, Harvard University) tackles the question of why academic writing is often quite poor.[1] Walt believes there are some real reasons why academic writing suffers, but this is not because either “no one encourages future academics to write well” or “because of poor editing at journals or university presses.” He offers a couple of surface level reasons followed by two deeper reasons academic writing is “frequently abysmal.”

One reason academic writing is difficult to read is “because the subjects being addressed are complicated and difficult and hard to explain with ordinary language.” Academic discussions on philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, or epistemology, for instance, can be very technical. Walt notes, however, that this is no excuse because writer should still set forth his prose as lucidly as possible.

Another reason is that many scholars fail to “appreciate the difference between the logic of discovery and the logic of presentation.” By this Walt means academic writers should not explain their argument in writing in the same order or manner in which they built their argument while researching. Good writing, Walt argues, requires the researcher-writer to craft an argument with clear, logical connections. The point of writing for an audience is to help the audience to understand the argument and be persuaded by it.

A third, and deeper, reason that academics set forth such turgid and torturous prose “is that many academics (and especially younger ones) tend to confuse incomprehensibility with profundity.” That is, scholars often use confusing prose and slather their essays with technical jargon in an effort to sound intelligent. Yet as Walt indicates, a convincing argument does not require stuffy, specialized prose even if the academic might be writing about a specialized topic.

A final, and similarly deep, reason is “fear of being wrong.” If one writes clearly, one’s work is easier to understand and therefore easier to critique. In order to avoid this some academics may write in an intentionally obscure manner. As Walt claims, “bad writing thus becomes a form of academic camouflage designed to shield the author from criticism.” I second Walt’s point, and quote historian of philosophy Bryan Magee, who once put it this way: “The desire to communicate and be understood as widely as possible often comes directly into conflict with the desire to impress. This gives many people an incentive not to be clear, because what they have to say does not amount to much, and so the more clearly it is expressed the more obvious that fact will be.”

Whatever the reasons for bad writing, Walt proposes some solutions. He encourages his own students to read books about writing. He recommends the classic by Strunk and White, Elements of Style, particularly for its emphasis on concision. “Most of us tend to overwrite . . . and shorter is almost always better.” He also recommends Anthony Weston’s A Rulebook for Arguments for sharpening one’s argumentation skills. Second, Walt encourages students to “emulate writers they admire.” Of course, this piece of advice requires students to read a good bit and therefore know that they actually do admire certain writers. Those who read (and read well) write better than those who do not.

Walt’s article is spot on, and I’ll offer two thoughts in response. (I’ve thought about this topic a bit, especially in light of the felt need to make my own writing style less awful.) First, Walt is correct that scholars often are poor writers. Of the “Great Book” authors, Herodotus, Hegel, and Kant come to mind. In fact Hegel’s prose is such an obfuscation that Caird described it in this manner: “the height of audacity in serving up pure nonsense, in stringing together senseless and extravagant mazes of words, such as had previously been known only in madhouses, was finally reached in Hegel, and became the instrument of the most bare-faced general mystification that has ever taken place, with a result which will appear fabulous to posterity, and will remain as a monument to…stupidity.”  I shudder as I remember early in my career trying to explain Hegel to my wretched flock of imprisoned undergrads, as we slogged hopelessly through his Phenomenology of Spirit.

Second, Walt’s four suggestions strike me as reasonable explanations for poor academic writing. Scholars often address difficult ideas, follow the logic of discovery rather than the logic of presentation, try to sound profound, and seek to shield themselves from criticism by writing in an intentionally obscure manner. In addition to Walt’s suggestions, several others present themselves immediately to my mind. Some scholars are never told that good writing takes hard work and many layers of revision. In addition, some scholars are never offered the services of a writing center or the tutelage of a skilled professor of rhetoric. Finally, some scholars are not fascinated by words and have little interest in crafting excellent sentences. In a word, they don’t really care about language.

Third, Walt recommends Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and Anthony Weston’s A Rulebook for Arguments. In addition to those books, I recommend two more. First, William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. Zinsser’s book is, ahem, very well written and serves as a fine introductory text to the task of writing. Second, Joseph Williams’ Style. Williams’ book is the field standard for aspiring academic writers.

Three cheers for Stephen M. Walt, who reminds us that our writing is often quite poor and that we should work hard to make it better.

Now this one caught my attention. In a recent edition of Times Literary Supplement Tim Lewens reviews Daniel C. Dennett’s recent book on the nature of humor, Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind.[1] It caught my attention because Dennett is an atheist, which I think uniquely handicaps him in trying to understand humanity in general, and the comic dimension of humanity in particular.

Lewens notes three main theories of humor. Superiority theories “say that humor illustrates the inferiority in some respect of the joke’s butt” so that one laughs when one feels (at least a bit) superior about someone or something else. Release theories claim that humor provides “a sort of relief from build-up of nervous tension.” Incongruity-resolution theories “assert that humorous situations involve the presentation of an incongruity that is subsequently involved.” Dennett and company offer a version of this theory, arguing that humor is that “we find things funny when our expectations are overturned.”

The “expectations overturned” theory offered in Inside Jokes builds upon three principles. First, humor “requires committed expectations that are subsequently overturned.” Something is funny when it does not fit with the normal rhyme and rhythm of one’s day, and the expectations that come with it. Second, the overturning of expectations must ‘not be accompanied by any (strong) negative emotional violence.’ That is, there is a point at which funny crosses the line into “not funny.” Third, humor “requires that our expectations are swiftly overwhelmed.” Those with a quick wit tend to get more laughs than those who describe a humorous experience with long-winded, plodding, and pedantic prose (get it).

Lewens reflects upon Inside Jokes and offers several strengths and weaknesses this theory. He argues that its strengths are the importance placed on comic timing and shared-knowledge–something isn’t funny if no one knows what the person trying to be funny is talking about. Its weaknesses, though, are in the button-downed approach to humor: it may be too cognitive-based. Is there room in this cognitive theory for slap-stick or even the juvenile side of humor?  Some things are funny because they fit within a conversation, book, show, or film that intends to be funny. That is, Inside Jokes may ignore the genre of humor itself for the sake of a theory of how it works.

In response, I’ll agree with Dennett & Co. that the comic dimension of human existence is captured best by an incongruity-resolution theory of some sort. However, I’ll depart from Dennett & Co. by offering an additional theological insight: laughter is redemptive. Laughter is best understood within a Christian theological framework because it is one of God’s gifts to a fallen world.

In his book Redeeming Laughter, sociologist Peter Berger laughter is universal, that it is a signal of transcendence, and that it is redemptive because it makes life in a fallen world easier to bear.[2] He further argues that humor is best understood in terms of incongruity and resolution.

Where does the incongruence lie? Berger notes that most or all humor revolves around anthropological or ontological incongruence. In an instance of anthropological incongruence, we recognize that we are incongruent with ourselves. We are the only animals capable of standing outside of ourselves, and we live in the tension of being able to do so. In an instance of ontological incongruence, we laugh when we notice our location in the universe. The comic provides us laughter and, in so doing, presents briefly a world without pain.

Our recognition that we are incongruent with ourselves and our longing for another world (one without pain) can be made sense of most fully by a Christian theological framework, one in which God’s redemption extends to God’s (incongruent) imagers but also to his (fallen) cosmos. When we laugh at ourselves and at our location in this painful world, we have a brief respite from the painful realities of life in after the Fall. Our humor is proleptic, anticipating the new heavens and earth to come. As Helmut Thielicke once observed, if humor was given a place in theology, it would be under eschatology.

I’ll see your one, and raise you another. In a recent edition of the Times Literary Supplement, John Gray reviews Vladimir Tismaneanu’s The Devil in History, which provides an extended criticism of communism in relation to fascism.[1] Gray’s account of Tismaneanu’s book spurred me to mediate some of his thoughts in blog format, and to add a criticism of my own.

In the book, Tismaneanu argues that in many respects Communism and Fascism in the 20^th-century were at one. He makes clear that “‘Communism is not Fascism, and Fascism is not Communism. Each totalitarian experiment has its own irreducible attributes’” (p. 7). The two political philosophies share similarities, however, that must be acknowledged by those of us living in the 21^st-century. Tismaneanu especially wants the attention of political liberals and utopians who think Communism is essentially good even if the Russians and Chinese applied its principles poorly.

Tismaneanu notes that Communism and Fascism shared the view that mass-killings are good for society. He writes, ‘Communism, like Fascism, undoubtedly founded its alternative, liberal modernity on the conviction that certain groups could be deservedly terminated. The Communist project, in such countries as the USSR, China, Cuba, Romania, or Albania, was based precisely on the conviction that certain social groups were irretrievably alien and deservedly murdered.’ (p. 7)

Communism and Fascism also shared ethnocentric, racist, and anti-Semitic beliefs which underlay their political philosophies. Tismaneanu writes as one with first-hand experience, as a child of Jewish parents who directly fought Fascism. His parents joined forces with Communists in order to fight the Fascists. Ironically Tismaneanu’s book endeavors to show “that Communism acquired some of Fascism’s defining characteristics” (p. 7).

In the end, Tismaneanu’s burden is to challenge a liberal intellectual infatuation with the “communist Utopia” (p. 7). These utopians are ones who believe that communist principles are true but that its historical application in recent history went awry due to unforeseen events, circumstances, or psychologies. For instance, Tismaneanu rejects the view that Stalin’s ruthlessness did not stem from his communism but merely from his sociopathic personality. Undoubtedly Stalin was a sociopath. However, Tismaneanu shows “methodological violence and pedagogic terror were integral features of Bolshevik doctrine” (p. 7). Stalin did not invent mass-killings; rather he perfected what Lenin taught.

As Gray notes, not every scholar will find Tismaneanu’s treatment of Communist totalitarianism convincing. Yet, Tismaneanu is certainly correct that in 1918 Russia Bolsheviks spoke of opponents as “byvshie liudi (former people),” which implied that those who were so-called were in fact considered sub-human. Thus these sub-humans could be discarded without much thought. So Gray reminds us, “in politics, the other face of radical evil is an inhuman vision of radical goodness” (p. 7).

This inhuman vision of radical goodness was underlain by a passionately held eschatology. Both Communism and Fascism, Tismaneanus writes, “were fuelled by millenarian religion ….[and] both were militant chiliasms that energized extraordinary ardor among unconditionally committed followers” (p. 8). Although Leninism, which grew into Communism, and Nazism denied alternative construals of meaning (like religion) and progress (like science), they both established themselves on particular world and scientific views: Nazism on the basis of racial hierarchies and eugenics, and Communism on the basis of historical-materialism. It is no surprise, then, that both laid hold of “militant chiliasms” in search of their power.

As a complement to Tismaneanu’s thesis, I wish to add that Liberalism falls under the same scourge. In fact, if I had written the book, I might have eschewed Fascism in favor of Liberalism. Both Liberalism and Communism emerged during an age of Revolution which sought to bring society into conformity with the Enlightenment faith. In order to buttress the Enlightenment vision (which had fallen on hard times in light of the social misery of the Industrial Revolution), true believers in Enlightenment Progress felt the need to compose an even greater myth.

Marxists and Communists applied Darwinism to the social realm, arguing that history is propelled by class conflict. Humanity progresses via class revolutions that eventually would lead to a utopia marked by the redistribution of wealth.

Liberals based their myth on the sovereignty of the individual, and focused on sexual, economic, and political freedom. This freedom often was conceived as autonomy in relation to God, rather than merely freedom in social and political affairs. Their response to the 19^th century’s suffering was either to explain it in terms of evolutionary progress (Herbert Spencer) or seek a government-based social justice (John Stuart Mill).

An example is Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama’s thesis is that the end of the Cold War signaled the rise of “a form of society that satisfied its deepest and most fundamental longings.” All of the really big questions will have been settled; hence there will be no further progress in principles and institutions. For him, Western values would triumph. In particular, democratic capitalism would have no competitor; it would be the final form of society. Even religious ideologies would not overturn this. Fukuyama’s is a Hegelian view of history, utopian and wildly optimistic. (It does, however, have some dark strains, such as his focus on the Nietzschean concept of The Last Man.)

One of Fukuyama’s strongest critics has been Samuel Huntington. While he rightly rejects Fukuyama’s Hegelian method and utopian aspirations, however, Huntington himself fares no better by rejecting all “universal” history and leaving himself with only the particulars. In other words, Huntington rejects the notions of God, something beyond this world, and the idea that God is guiding history towards a triumphant ending.

For those of us who are believers, however, there is a master narrative that interprets this world and points towards a time of restoration and hope. In four plot moves—Creation, Fall, Redemption, New Creation—we learn in broad stroke form both the direction in which history is moving and the framework for interpreting the events, times, and developments of this world. God through Christ is redeeming for himself a people and one day will restore even creation itself. Moreover, the people he redeems for himself will consist of worshipers from among every tribe, tongue, people, and nation—a phenomenon that transcends not only cultures and civilizations, but even history itself.

In response to the Enlightenment faith and its utopian myths which reject God and the hope of divine redemption, we offer the Christian faith as the true story of the whole world.

In a recent essay in The Atlantic Richard Gunderman discusses the recent pedagogical trends in medical, dental, and nursing schools.[1] One trend is that the traditional “lecture” is going the way of the deceased patient. Yet Gunderman believes there may yet be life and hope for the academic lecture.

Medical educators increasingly doubt the effectiveness of the lecture, but they’re not the only ones.  “Commentators frequently single out the lecture as the prototypically old school, obsolete learning technology, in comparison to which newer educational techniques offer interactive, customized, and self-paced learning alternatives.” These newer techniques include the use of laptops, tablets, and other technology in interactive group formats. Moreover, this is not simply a choice individual instructors or institutions have made. As Gunderman notes, “The LCME, the organization that accredits US medical schools, strictly limits the number of hours per week students may spend in lectures.” Some schools are even put on probation for not adhering to this criteria, apparently spending too much time on “passive” approaches to learning.

In the wake of all this progressive and interactive learning one asks, “what then of the lecture?” Gunderman believes, recalling Mark Twain’s words, “widespread reports of the lecture’s demise are somewhat exaggerated.” Ineffectiveness is not inherent in the lecture; it is inherent in the poorly delivered lecture. Surely just as there are boring, ineffective lectures there are boring, ineffective study groups. So Gunderman believes educators “must attempt to understand better the features that distinguish effective, engaging lectures [and lecturers]” rather than “disposing entirely of the lecture as a means of learning.” Thus the fate of the lecture is more a matter of the lecture’s purpose and the lecturer’s acumen and passion.

Gunderman encourages educators to ask a basic question: “why am I lecturing?” This question connects administrators and teachers to a more effective means of evaluation. The “why am I lecturing” question evaluates both the lecture and the lecturer. For as Gunderman argues, “the core purpose of a great lecture is not primarily to transmit information . . . The real purpose of a lecture is to show the mind and heart of the lecturer at work, and to engage the hearts and minds of learners.” Because of this sort of teaching, students raise new questions, connections, and possibilities in their own minds. Hence education is far more than disseminating information and tracking its consumption. Education is, then, a very human endeavor; good lecturers and good lectures recognize and strive for this.

Gunderman thus notes the qualities of a good lecturer and lecture. First, “a great lecturer tells a story.” Second, great lecturers enjoy lecturing (use “teaching” if you still dislike the term). “A great lecture is not a rote mechanical reading of notes, but a kind of dance, in which lecturer and listeners watch, respond to, and draw energy and inspiration from each other.” (There is “group study” in good lectures!) Third, good lecturers lecture in person. Gunderman recounts, as examples, two lectures: one given by Randy Pausch (professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon) in 2007 (while he was dying of cancer), and the other by Steve Jobs in 2005 at Stanford University. They did not record their lectures on high-tech gadgets, about which they both knew a little bit, and they did not simply read their notes. Instead, Pausch and Jobs spoke passionately, personally (to their audience), and reflectively about their respective subjects. Their lectures were effective because they caused their audiences to think about their lives “from fruitful new perspectives” and likely without boring their audiences. Gunderman, then, challenges medical educators, and by extension all educators, to think twice before pronouncing the lecture deceased. Rather, “the lecture remains one of our most precious educational resources.”

Kudos to Richard Gunderman, wherever he is. The lecture remains one of our most precious educational resources, and it ought not be sent to the pedagogical morgue on account of its most boring and tedious practitioners. As teachers, we must work hard to evoke from our students a curiosity and excitement about the things of God. To be a lazy teacher, preacher, or writer is a sin. Although George Steiner was not writing about theologians, his words are instructive:

To teach seriously is to lay hands on what is most vital in a human being. . . . Poor teaching, pedagogic routine, a style of instruction which is, unconsciously or not, cynical in its mere utilitarian aims, are ruinous. They tear up hope by its roots. Bad teaching is, almost literally, murderous and metaphorically, a sin. It diminishes the student, it reduces to gray inanity the subject being presented.

May teachers everywhere, and especially professors of theology, lecture as if their hair were on fire. May they tell the Great Story passionately, personally, and reflectively, and in so doing inform, energize, and inspire their students.